scribblings of a reporter

The rickshaw ride

It was a fantastic rickshaw ride we had this evening for time unaccounted. After lunch at Banani Kozmo, we got on a rickshaw. Our conversation continued. The rickshawpuller without even asking for directions started paddling. Not setting the destination was worth the fun. I don’t remember the directions but I truly loved the ride for all that I had come across and more importantly the company that few months away from now I would be missing the most. She however is so amused by the fact. 😛

So from Banani 11, crossing the bridge and then to Gulshan 2, I am lost as to where we headed off. The rickshawpuller mapped our road trip pretty well and quite interestingly he had even pondered for split seconds in front of a lane before he decided not to take it and instead find another route. His idea of finding another route worked out for us better. In fact, it seemed the rickshaw puller knew the places we would love to travel. It was more than random.

On our way her maroon SUV had just whizzed out perhaps from her home with her brother and the driver inside. Then came one brown brick duplex that she apparently would love to have owned but then a few buildings next to it, there was one house which she didn’t like and another that had a swimming pool on the basement 😛 Now how does one know that? But she knew.

We passed the junior section of Green Dale, the school at which she was a teacher for the senior section until recently. And though we didn’t pass the senior section because the rickshaw wallah once again changed his mind about the direction himself :-), two of her students had waved her on the way. And though she’d wave them back with a smile, she would feel embarrassed being seen.

Crossed the United Hospital and if only her panic attacks had stopped, some way ahead she feared her aunt in a car to see her which didn’t eventually happen.

Like most rickshaw wallahs ours too kept spitting on the street. I counted him doing it thrice but nonetheless he was kind enough to spit bending towards the front and not sideways which otherwise would have spattered towards our way. :-S

The rickshaw wallah informed us that he was taking us back to where we started from and on the way we passed a few other landmarks that I would recall if I am on that road ever again.

The red tiled Eastern apartment that was once a kindergarten from where she started school. Oh before that I think we also passed the Christian Primary Education Centre. Damn! How did we miss the playpen and AKS 🙂 These are schools she studied at.

Anyways, the ride that began from Kozmo on Road 11 ended on the same street but in front of Club Gelato. While paying the rickshaw wallah off 110, he was highly courteous to ask if we had enjoyed the ride and what had we to say? It was overwhelming.

And then just as he answered to me where he lived, I learnt that apparently people living in Kuril are usually that nice. Oh somewhere during the ride I was also surprised by the fact that in Sylhet when she went with family for holiday, she had come across a similar account of a rickshaw wallah who took her mom and her for sightseeing in Sylhet. And I do remember the rickshaw puller hailed from our part of the country, somewhere from the Khulna division.

For all those panic attacks of being seen on the street by family and others are just about to get over as she waits for that liberty awaiting her at Germany.